Comments on: PC World’s Top 10 Cellphones

By: Zoli Erdos

Zoli Erdos — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 01:27:27 +0000

Just did, thanks a lot – supposed to arrive any minute tonight:-)

The only surprise I had was the Hotspot option – appears to be $30 now, vs $20 earlier under Everything Plus.

Btw, apologies for the duplicate comment, entered it under your post announcing the EVO availability, before seeing you responded here.

By: Russ

Russ — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:47:55 +0000

Zoli – why don’t you just order the EVO through Everything Plus. They’re available now.

By: Zoli Erdos

Zoli Erdos — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 02:00:36 +0000

Russ,

I’m trying to find a way to come to Sprint under the Everything Plus plan and buy an EVO. For now the EVO is only available from 3rd parties, e.g Amazon and others, who cannot sign me up for Everything Plus. Sprint could, but is out of EVO stock, and there’s not even a wait-list option.

Now, here’s the crazy (?) idea: can I sign up for Everything Plus without buying a phone? Or is there another Sprint discount plan if I bring my own phone?

The math behind this: the difference between the Everything Plus or the regular plan is $480 over the lifetime of the contract, if I also subscribe for Hotspot, which I do need. Amazon sells the EVO without contract for $199, so it’s “only” $300 more than the contract price. I might as well just buy the phone at full price if I find a discount-level Sprint plan…

By: Zoli Erdos

Zoli Erdos — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:49:35 +0000

@Tom, there is a free app at the marketplace, RealSignal – actually recommended to me by Sprint’s Customer Service while I had a test EVO. It shows signal in dBm, i.e. absolute numbers, not bars which could be subjective. In fact you can use it for comparison between different carriers, too – although I guess there are many other factors that go into the usability of a phone. But between two Sprint phones it should be quite reliable.

Btw, I did some Sprint vs. Verizon comparison in my area which has poor coverage from ALL carriers, and while Verizon had better voice signal, Sprint won in data signal strength. I guess the difference is not a big deal for voice (both had decent voice quality), but is very important for data, especially if you try to use the hotspot feature.

Too bad amidst all the experimentation I let go of my EVO – now cannot come back using Russ’s discount code, as EVOs are not available

By: Russ

Russ — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:47:37 +0000

BJ,

I believe Indy was on the original list for Sprint’s XOHM 4G division. When we merged XOHM with Clearwire, the new combined management team had to establish a new roadmap. I’m not in a position to share how they develop that roadmap. I’m sorry your wait has been extended.

Russ

By: BJ

BJ — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:18:25 +0000

Thank you for putting your information out there and allowing me to move my family over to Sprint from Verizon. We’re getting more and paying less than we were there.

Do you know what happened to the plans for 4g/WiMax roll out for Indianapolis? Indy was one of the first cities announced a couple years ago, but it never happened. And we’re not on any upcoming road maps that I’ve seen.

By: Russ

Russ — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 06:20:15 +0000

Tom – I’m not aware of any metric, but you might check out the reviews at community.sprint.com.

By: Tom Rollins

Tom Rollins — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 11:27:46 +0000

Russ,
Is there a good metric that one can use to judge phone reception quality between different sprint phones? (Some phones I have seem to keep a sprint signal better than others.)